Gracie and Earl

The subject of this post is a pair of doves that have taken up residence in my landlord's backyard. I have become rather fascinated by their lives, and therefore like any slightly whacky animal-lover, I have named them - Gracie and Earl. I don't know exactly how to describe Gracie and Earl other than to equate them (in a very un-PC way - sorry) with an old Jewish couple. They even kind of sound like it, too. Doves, as I have learned, tend to be rather large for backyard birds. They also don't actually fly that much. This is certainly true of Gracie and Earl. My landlord just loves backyard birds, and has several birdfeeders which he is constantly replenishing. The little birds - finches, cardinals, etc. - all flock to the feeders in a state of perpetual fluttering. I don't think they really ever land. Gracie and Earl, on the other hand, just hang out under the feeder and peck at whatever the other birds drop on the ground. Occasionally, Earl gets on Gracie's nerves (in all honesty, I can't tell them apart, so maybe its Gracie getting on Earl's nerves, but I imagine it the other way around) and she sqwaks at and bites him. Then Earl slowly plods off to another area. When Gracie decides that its time to leave, she gives Earl another sqwak, and the two of them slowly waddle down the garden path and out across the parking lot behind the yard. That's usually where I see them in the evening - slowly waddling into the sunset across the parking lot, making bird-bickering noises as they go.

Now, while my landlord loves birds, he HATES squirrels. I mean, he really hates them - in a crazed, irrational sort of way. He's convinced that they are slowly dismantling his roof. And not to mention that they steal a lot of seed from the birds. So, he has embarked upon a project to slowly remove his enemies from his yard, one squirrel at a time. He has a "humane" trap that he puts out to snare the little guys. It breaks my heart, and I'll admit that I have started letting the squirrels go under the cover of darkness. Well, apparently my efforts kind of backfired. Confused as to why he hasn't been catching any squirrels when clearly they are climbing allover the freaking trap, my landlord decided to get more aggressive, and he plunked the trap down right under one of the birdfeeders. The squirrels actually hang out down there with Gracie and Earl (I imagine its kind of like the neighborhood bar - "Hey, Earl! How's goin' buddy?" "Eh, the wife's on me about my weight lately - its hell."). Well, the trap did not catch any squirrels in its new location. It did however catch Earl. Or Gracie. One of them. It wasn't pretty. I woke up one morning and noticed some commotion outside my kitchen window. There was one dove sitting on top of the trap flapping and sqwaking wildly, while the other one was doing the same inside the trap.

So, I got really mad. Clearly, this was irresponsible use of a trap on the part of my landlord! So, I went marching across the yard and knocked on his back door. When he answered, I pointed to the trap and said I thought he'd caught the wrong thing. He swore loudly (he does love his birds afterall) and ran out to free Earl. Or Gracie. The next day the trap was gone. I have a feeling he's using it somewhere else - somewhere that I can't see it. He may have figured out that I was behind his low squirrel totals.

Anyway, Gracie and Earl are safe once again. And for the record, the picture above is one of them, but I'm not sure which. For some reason, as soon as I produced a camera, they suddenly acted like they'd never seen eachother before.